Eliza Monroe hadn’t expected the office building to be so plain. It looked like a repurposed insurance agency: beige brick, mirrored windows, a parking lot full of government sedans. She half-expected balloons taped to the front doors, as if to welcome a new hire. Instead, there was only a keypad lock and a man in a grey suit who already knew her name.

“Miss Monroe. Right this way.” No handshake, no smile.

The halls inside were long, sterile, washed in fluorescent light that hummed like an old refrigerator. Every door was unmarked. She wanted to ask why no one wore name tags, or why they took her phone at the entrance, but her tongue felt glued in place. The man guided her deeper, until the air itself seemed heavier.

The “orientation” was just a contract. Pages thick with black bars, legal jargon, signatures that belonged to men who hadn’t been in the room for years. She wasn’t allowed to take a copy. “Your consent is recorded,” the agent said, sliding the papers away as soon as her pen touched the last line.

From there, things blurred. A sterile exam by a nurse with kind eyes who whispered, “It’s not too late to walk away.” A blood draw. A locked elevator sinking far below ground.

It was only when the reinforced doors opened that she realized this was no clinic. The walls were concrete, lined with observation windows, and on the other side of the glass stood figures in lab coats watching her with unnerving calm. She felt less like a volunteer and more like an exhibit.

And then came the chamber.

They told her his codename first—Subject Seven—as if reciting a number would make him less than a man. But when the lights shifted, revealing the figure inside, Eliza’s chest hollowed out. He was tall. Too tall. His skin glowed faintly, not with warmth but with something cold, unnatural. His black eyes fixed on her instantly, and though a reinforced wall of glass divided them, Eliza swore he looked through it, straight into her.

“Your role begins here,” Dr. Kessler said, his voice thin, clinical. No further explanation. No details.

Seven tilted his head, his expression unreadable. He did not blink. And Eliza realized—for the first time since she signed her name—just how little she knew about what she had agreed to.